Raekwon Admits that He Oringinally Intended For “The Purple Tape” To Be Green

In a recent interview, Raekwon took the time to reflect on the “Purple Tape” and how it came into being. Those who are a part of the Hip Hop faithful recognize, “Only Built 4 Cuban Linx” as a cultural beachhead, most remembered and recognized by its promotional “Purple Tape.”

During an interview with Complex, Raekwon admitted that he wanted to create something that stood out from everything else that was out at that time.

“I wanted to make sure that the average cat that would listen to it had something special in his cassette deck,” Rae said. “Like, out of all of his tapes, my shit was private; my shit was for special people. Like you had to be somebody to rock that, so I wanted to separate that from everybody else’s.”

The rapper also admitted that he initially intended for the tape to be green, but when he could not make that happen, the suggested color of purple was adopted.

“At first I was gonna do it green, ‘cause green is my favorite color; I like olive green, but they couldn’t do that color,” he said. “Next thing you know, they was like ‘Blah, blah, blah, blah and purple’ and I was like ‘A lot of niggas might think purple is for girls’ but I liked the color because it stood out, so I was like ‘Fuck it, let’s go with purple.”

He went on to talk about the possibility of eventually opening a restaurant to make the “Chef” moniker official.

“You might be able to come to a Chef restaurant and get you a little turkey wrap or something, with some extra shit on it. Some $1,000 dressing or something. It’s just that the food business is tough because you gotta keep everything fresh—you can’t play with food.”